Coin and Banner

You are nobody. You have a purse, a road, and the going rate for a man who will carry a spear.

Coin and Banner is a medieval sandbox RPG about raising a company and fighting your way to a crown. Hire men, keep them fed and paid, and lead them in battles of hundreds. Take a lord's coin or take his town. The army that gets you there is made of men you come to know.

From nobody to ruler

Earn your first coins with jobs, bandit hunts and tournaments. Swear service to a lord and fight beneath his banner, or raise your own. Five realms make war and peace around you in a world drawn fresh each campaign. Win allies, hold land, and become a lord other lords will follow.

Take the crown by conquest or by winning the Moot of Crowns. Then stop, or keep ruling.

The men have names

Hire men one at a time. Learn their trades, train their strengths, and read what is on their minds. They earn honours, carry wounds, make friends and rivals. Leave them hungry and unpaid, and a ringleader makes a demand. Seven companions have their own views on the company you keep.

When a man dies, his name, deeds and last battle go into the Hall of Banners. He does not come back.

Fourteen kinds of soldier

Build your line around spears, pikes and men-at-arms. Put bows and crossbows behind them. Train men with the Spark as battlemages, healing warders, spellblades or arcane archers. Fourteen soldier types and fifteen techniques give you a company to shape: Cleave, Double Shot, Rain, Pillar of Fire, and more.

Even a man who can call fire wants paying.

Lead the battle

Set your formations and orders, time a volley, call a charge, or rally a breaking line. Take direct control of your hero and join the fight. Or trust the sergeant's reckoning and jump in when you choose.

Victory leaves work to do. Choose which wounded man the surgeon sees first, who earns an honour, and who gets a dead man's kit. Winning still costs you men.

Take the wall

Build ladders, a ram and a siege tower while both sides eat. Send a fire-caller to breach the wall. Climbers can be thrown off; take the battlements and the fight moves into the square. Stay too long and a relief army comes up behind you.

Take a town and hold it

Mercy, tribute or the sack: the gates are open, and the choice is yours. Set taxes and edicts, build works, and leave one of your own men as governor. Send detachments to patrol, hunt bandits or reinforce a holding. Keep your garrison fed and paid, or it may open the gates for someone else.

The road costs something

Food runs down as you march. Wages come due. Winter slows the company and leaves little to forage. Mules and wagons carry your supplies, but they eat too.

Caravans carry the goods towns depend on. Bandits rob them, markets go short, and camps grow where nobody rides. Trade, take work, or clear the road yourself. Choose the fastest route, the safest, or the one that will feed your men.

No chosen one, no prophecy. Just men, coin, food, and whether they believe you.